Social Mechanics

Content of this article:

1. Grouping Basics
2. Public Games
3. Clans
4. Communities
5. Multiplayer Scaling

Introduction

The only way to have more fun fighting the Minions of Hell is to team up with friends to slay them together! Here we'll cover the mechanics you need for group play in Diablo III, which is heavily favored in terms of efficiency and rewards.

1. Grouping Basics

Finding groups in Diablo is both easy and rewarding. Let's discuss the basic ways to meet people and make friends!

Preparing for Group Play

Before we begin searching for teammates, let's go over some Golden Rules that will make us more successful:

1. Be Nice. Never insult another play for any reason. It accomplishes & proves nothing.
2. Be Friendly. Chat, joke around and have fun. This will make others want to group with you again.
3. Be Knowledgeable. Know your class and build before grouping with others.
4. Be Helpful. Take the time to assist others. They will appreciate it and remember you.
5. Be Prepared. Have the right gear, spec, re-rolls and augments for your character.
6. Be Flexible. If you're willing to play different game modes, difficulties, characters and roles, people will like you.

How to Find Teammates

The best way to have reliable people to play with is to make friends and fill up your friends list, which can hold up to 200 people. Fortunately there are many ways that we can find new friends within the game: Public Games, Clans and Communities are the primary ways of doing this and we'll want to utilize all three to keep ourselves playing in groups as much as possible.

Adding Friends

Click the Social Tab on the bottom right of your screen, click the "Friends" icon at the top of the list, you can also press the letter "O" on your keyboard. Once the tab is open you'll see an option to "Add Friend" at the bottom, when clicking this a window pops up to enter in their Battletag or Email. A Battletag will always follow the format of NAME#123456, to see yours look at the top of your friends list. If someone tells you their Battletag is "Nursultan Tulyakbay," you know that you need more information, we need the numbers to get them on our friends list! Now that we know the most basic way of getting into a group and how to add friends, lets talk about Clans and Communities.

2. Public Games

Here is the main menu for selecting game modes and difficulty. In "Adventure Mode" there is an option in the bottom right to select "Public Game" and a drop down menu where you can select the game mode. After hitting "Join Game" you will be matched with up to 3 other players who chose the same settings. Note that in order to search for Public Games on higher difficulties (T6+) you must complete increasingly harder Solo Greater Rifts to unlock them. This is to prevent players who cannot contribute to the team from searching for T16 right from the start. You must clear a Greater Rift 75 Solo in order to search for T16 Public Games.

3. Clans

Joining a Clan is another great way to spend more time in group play and make new friends, and you'll even get a Clan Tag in front of your Character name! Find one use the same "Social" button in the bottom right and click the "Communities" tab this time. After clicking on "Find Clan" the following window will come up where you can search for a clan, create a clan or browse for clans that have spots open.

The main page of a clan is shown below. You can filter by each column to try to find players around your same paragon level or to find people who aren't currently with a group or in a game. This is a fantastic resource on top of the friends list as clans can have up to 150 members. You will also get a separate "Clan Chat" which will show you the items the find and tell you if they've place on the leaderboards. These notifications are customizable and you can disable any/all of them if you wish in the clan settings.

4. Communities

Communities in a similar way to Clans with 3 main differences:

1. A Community can have any number of members, making it an even more amazing resource for finding groups.

2. You can be in as many different communities as you want! You can find communities dedicated to Powerleveling, Greater Rifts, Nephalem Rifts, Individual Classes and many others.

3. Communities are not tied to your character in anyway. No tag is displayed before your character name and it wont show up anywhere on leaderboards.

Below you'll see some options that come up when you open the Communities Tab. It's very similar to the Clan Finder and you can use the search bar on the left if you have a Community you want to search for.

Communities Outside Diablo

Aside from in game functions to find groups and team up with others there are many resources outside of Diablo that can be great tools.

1. Twitch is a great way to meet new people and engage with streamers and their communities. You'll find that many of the people who stream have their own Clans and Communities in game, many of which are seeking new members and people to play with! Don't be shy and get to know some people of the great people on this streaming platform.

2. Discord is another great way to stay connected with other players and meet new people. Many times players and/or content creators will have a Community Discord where people can get to know each other and use great in app tools like voice chat!

3. Reddit is one of the best forums you'll find for all things Diablo. Be sure to check out both the Diablo and Diablo III subreddits along with any future ones coming later in the franchise!

5. Multiplayer Scaling

The power of monsters increases for each player that joins your fight against the Minions of Hell. There is a different scaling in place for the different game modes:

Story- and Adventure Mode

Inside Greater Rifts

The base health of monsters is lower to begin with in Greater Rifts, but scales up faster per additional player that joins the group.
As you can see by this group scaling it is always more efficient these day to play in a group, as the benefit of having party members far outweighs the monsters power gain. On top of that you gain the Strength in Numbers buff in group play. The monster's damage output stays exactly the same, while the players toughness only goes up by skills like Ignore Pain or Inner Sanctuary. This has not always been the case however:
History
This scaling was not always in place. When Vanilla Diablo III launched in back in 2012 there was a monster damage scaling per player. This was absolutely crazy and a played huge part in why Inferno was so hard back in the days. It was actually the META to play solo because every damage dealer in a group would just get one shotted by monsters with enhanced multiplayer damage. Very nice to see that this has been changed!

Strength in Numbers

This buff grants 10% additional experience gain as well as Gold- and Magic find per player in your group. This buff is additive to itself, but multiplicative to most other experience bonuses like Pools of Reflection for example.
The Strength in Numbers buff only works if party members are in close range to each other (around 1,5 screens), only counts for killing monsters and not for completing Quests or Greater Rift. You can see the full 4-Player scaling in this list:

This buff on its own is not too crazy, but combined with the above mentioned Greater Rift scaling in groups, it will always be the META to play in a 4-Player group as long as the current scaling is not changed.
Other crazy benefits of teaming up are:

Group Synergies
Besides damage and toughness buffs there are also unique abilities and combination that can only be performed in group play:

- Pulling & Pixeling: The party can achieve awesome control over the enemies with skill combinations like Cyclone Strike, Ancient Spear, Ground Stomp but also items like Ranslor's Folly, Leonine Bow of Hashir and The Ess of Johan and deal massive amounts of damage with mechanics like Area Damage.

- CC Immunity: Makes you immune to any Crowd Control effects completely nullifying various monster affixes like Knockback, Jailer etc.. This is achieved by group wide buff skills like Ignore Pain or Inner Sanctuary .

- Health Globe spawning and resource management: Additional Health Globes can be spawned by skills like Ground Stomp Jarring Slam, Threatening Shout Grim Harvest or Land of the Death with the Life from Death. These Health Globes can be used by players with Reaper's Wraps or Passives like Blood Vengeance to gain massive amount of resources.

- Pylons: Pylons can be used way more efficient in groups. One player can be far away in a good position to deal plenty of damage already, while the Pylon can be clicked by a teammate multiple screens away. This allows Pylon to be timed perfectly in an position with buffs like Convention of Elements etc.. Some Pylons are also more powerful in groups like a Conduit Pylon utilizing The Flavor of Time and The Executioner by supports.

- Other group buffs like Movement Speed with Standoff for the Furious Charge Barb META or skill triggers by fast attacking support builds like in the Fists of Thunder Static Charge Monk META can further enhance group play.

Overall group play is the best thing to do if you want to get progression in Diablo III - Enjoy slaying Demons together with your friends!

Guide by Raxxanterax and Rob